The Worst Day Ever Can't Be All Bad
Um...well...this is my first story, so constructive criticism welcome! This story really just came off the top of my head, and I needed to write it down before I forgot it. Yes, there will be more to this story. That's as much as I can tell you for now. Hopefully I'll get started on the next one here really soon. Oh, and standard disclaimer. IF you're not 18, don't read it. There isn't any yiff in this chapter, but there are male/male themes. Also, this story contains some material that some people may find...disturbing!
You don't know how close I was to the edge. No one can ever know. I had the gun in my hand, the press of cold steel against my temple made my heart race. I remember closing my eyes; I saw those little spots that dance around whenever you close your eyes really tightly. I could feel my hand, cold and clammy; clamp around the grip of the gun so tightly that my knuckles turned white. I felt my finger inch slowly toward the trigger, my breathing shallow, scared to death. I think that is pretty funny; here I was, about to commit the deadliest of sins, I was going to kill myself, and I was scared to death. Its funny how life has its little ironies, isn't it? The cold trigger was underneath my finger, and I pulled.
There was no bang, no sudden and flaring pain, and no blackness that overtook me. All I heard was a muted click. My breath rushed out of me, my hand went limp, and the gun fell to the floor with a thud. I had forgotten to load it. I had forgotten to load it! Thank God, my own stupidity had saved my life. Maybe God had decided that it wasn't my time to die, and made me forget, or maybe the very thought of doing it, actually ending my own life, had caused a lapse in intelligence. Which ever one it was, I dropped to my knees and started crying. The relief that I wasn't dead, the fact that I was going to live, going to go to school tomorrow, going to do more pointless assignments and read more useless stories in Brit Lit washed over me like a tidal wave. I must have cried for hours, lying there on the floor of my room, arms hugging my knees to my chest.
I can recall how I woke up the next morning. Well, it was more like the next two A.M., but that's technically morning. My dog, a big brown and black German Sheppard by the name of Raa, ambled into my room and began licking my face vigorously. I sputtered, both in surprise and in disgust at the taste of his saliva in my mouth, but I was glad he had got me up. It proved to me in some way that I was alive, alive, me, a guy who had been about to kill himself. I hugged him as tightly as I could, he whined a little because I strangled him a little bit, but it sure helped me.
After divesting myself of my clothing and flopping down on my bed, I thought of what I had nearly done. I shivered under my blankets, the still-cold fabric comforting against my scales. I looked at my clock, reading the glowing red numbers that glared at me like some devil-eye in the darkness. Two-thirty. [God,] I thought to myself. I did have school tomorrow, even if I didn't want to go. I closed my eyes and hugged my body pillow tightly, wishing that it wasn't a pillow, but another person. But that wouldn't happen to me. I was a loser, the loneliest guy in school. I truly had no friends. Of course, when you are a 6' 4" gold dragon who goes to school everyday with black clothes, spiked wrist bands, and a large spiked collar, it's hard for people to see you for who you are. I also have no less than six piercings, three small hoops in each large ear. People often asked if I was pierced anywhere else. I always answered them with an honest "No."It didn't help that anyone who tried to get close to me, I pushed away. I was so scared of people...people...knowing. Finding out my secret.
I shivered again, and buried my face into my pillow. I drifted off to sleep, still emotionally and physically drained. When the alarm clock went off at seven A.M., I groaned and slammed my hand down on the off button. Unfortunately, my mother chose to walk in at that moment and yelled at me to "Wake up, or I was going to be late." I made a small "oof" noise and refused to move. That was when she saw the gun still lying on the floor. She let out a soft scream and immediately went to the side of the bed, whipping the covers off of my face. "Oh my God, Jake! Oh my God, please be alright!" she cried out, holding my face to her chest. I can say, this was really, really awkward, but I could understand her concern. I pushed her away and sat up, my arms resting on my knees and my head hanging down. "Mom, I'm fine," I explained, "I was too dumb to load it, so you don't have to worry about me." She hugged me tightly, her head resting on my shoulder. She was crying pretty hard, although, under the circumstances, I guess that was understandable. "Jake, don't you ever, ever, ever do anything like this again," she sobbed. I returned the hug, making small shushing noises to try and calm her down. "Mom, hey, Mom, I'm fine, please, you don't need to cry."
Of course, no amount of shushing could stop her from soaking my covers and bed with her tears. When she finally stopped crying, the clock read nine A.M. When I pointed this out to my mother, she got pretty mad. She yelled at me for making her worry so much, then began to lay down the road map for quite the guilt trip. She explained how, if I had loaded the gun, or if there had been a bullet in the chamber, how I would've been irreversibly damaged, or worse, dead. When I tried to calmly explain to her that I was fine, there hadn't been a bullet in the gun, and that she didn't need to yell at me, I got the point, she got even madder and prohibited me from leaving my room for the rest of the week. As it was Friday, this didn't mean that I would miss too much, but I was thrilled to get out of school that easily. [Maybe I should do this more often] I thought to myself. But, no, that would only make things worse, and what if the gun was loaded next time.
I managed to force myself out of my bed and slipped into a pair of athletic shorts. Briefs are for wussies, was my motto, and if I was going to be stuck at home all day, there wasn't a real need for pants. I waited until I heard my mother walk out the door to go work at her first of two jobs, and then I made my move. I quietly slipped out of my room, snuck into the kitchen, and grabbed a Mountain Dew and a two or three day old doughnut from the box on the counter. I stole back to my room with my hastily grabbed breakfast and settled in for another long, lonely day. What I didn't figure on, however, was the fact that my mother had called the school in order to explain my absence, and had actually told them the truth about why I wouldn't be showing up today. I learned later from a couple of people at school that they announced my attempted suicide over the intercom system, and everyone was told to try and show support for me in some way.
I had literally just found the remote for my T.V. and had flipped it on to Comedy Central when the doorbell rang. This startled me so much that I spilled my Mountain Dew down the front of my shorts. "Aw, shit," I swore. As if the day hadn't started out bad enough. I quickly dropped my shorts and grabbed a different pair out of the hamper. I didn't so much care whether or not they were clean, just as long as they weren't drenched in soda. I slipped out of my room again and went to answer the door. I was curious who would bother a family of two at nine-thirty in the morning on a Friday, when one of us works, and the other is usually at school.
I opened the door to see something very surprising. About ten or fifteen people, all of them kids from my school, were waiting outside my door. While most of them weren't carrying anything except maybe a backpack, I saw a few had balloons, and one even had a gift! I stood there, completely dumbfounded, until someone let out a catcall, something about putting a shirt on. This broke my stupor, and I was finally able to open my mouth and pop the question. "What the hell are all of you doing here?" I asked. I didn't mean it in an offensive way, but I was a little shaken. A fox tod who looked around my age took a few steps forward and hugged me. Actually hugged me. No obligatory three pats on the back, no quick embrace then release, he actually hugged me. The same person who had remarked about me earlier now yelled "Get a room!" I blushed furiously, and shrugged the fox off of me. "Alright, will someone explain what the hell is going on here? Who are you, and why are you on my lawn? Did the gun actually go off, and this is some twisted version of hell?" "So it's true," a small, very pretty otter female said, "you really did try to kill yourself."
I looked around with what I can only assume was a pretty stupid expression on my face, and finally let out a sigh of defeat. "Alright, you guys can come in, but first, someone has to tell me what you're doing here." It was the fox that had hugged me that spoke up. "They announced what you tried to do over the intercom at school. We were the first people to get to the school office to ask to come and see you." I stared at him, dumbfounded yet again. "Wait...what....you're telling me that they actually told the entire school why I didn't show up today?" The fox nodded furiously, his head bobbing up and down so fast I thought it would fly off. I clamped my hand on top of his head. All the nodding was making me sick. I motioned over my shoulder with my thumb, and the small crowd of people streamed past me into the living room. To tell the truth, I was pretty embarrassed to have any one over. Living in a double wide trailer on the cruddy side of town doesn't exactly come to mind when one thinks of a good place to have a lot of people over. They seemed comfortable. A couple of guys plopped down on the couch and immediately flipped on the T.V., while several girls gathered in the kitchen and began to talk and giggle amongst themselves.
I shivered involuntarily as I watched the group of femmes chatting together. I had sort of made my own little secret vow to never have any females in my house unless it was my mother or one of her friends. I, I just wasn't comfortable around girls. Hell, I'm still not, but that's a different story. I went down the hall to my room and made to flop onto the bed, but someone was already sitting on it. As you can imagine, my surprise was, to say, intense. I slammed the door shut behind me and glared at the fur sitting on my bed. It was that otter girl, the one who had remarked about my attempted suicide. She was laying down, watching my T.V., laying on my bed, drinking out of my Mountain Dew can, and wearing next to absolutely nothing. I stared at her, transfixed, unable to tear my eyes away from her. As much as I dislike girls, I can't deny instinctive responses to the feminine body. She looked up, as if she had just noticed me standing there with my back pressed up against the door, my eyes, having finally had the willpower to remove them from the femme otter, darting around the room looking for a way out.
She got up and advanced on me, walking in such a way that, even me, with my, let's just call them, "tendencies", couldn't ignore. I inhaled sharply and tried to look at anything else but her. Of course, I failed miserably. "Heya big boy," she whispered, her face now pressed against my ear, "I bet I know what'll make you feel better." As for what happened after that, I will only say that you should never, ever, corner a dragon. My response was swift, and uncalled for. I wrapped my hands around her midriff, picked her up, and basically threw her down onto my bed. Then, instead of doing what any "normal" guy would do, which would be to pounce her ass and yiff her until both were sore, I turned tail and ran. I ran down the hall, past the others chilling out in the living room, and literally burst out of the front door. I heard the snap of metal as I barreled full tilt into the cheap wooden door and the hinges snapped. And then I was out.
It felt so good to just run. To run from what I had denied for so long, to run from her, that otter, and from everyone else that seemed to have invaded my house. I heard and felt my bare feet hitting the pavement as I ran down our block, passing worn out, dead lawns, all of which seemed to be in front of trailers or ramshackle houses with peeling paint and missing shingles. I ran until I couldn't run any longer, until I was so tired that my knees were literally shaking. My legs felt like Jell-O, and my stomach was churning. I knew, at least, how to relieve one of those symptoms, so I simply leaned over and threw up into the lawn of some impoverished badger who was laying, either passed out or dead, on his porch. Judging from the way the flies were buzzing around, I guessed he was dead. This brought about another wave of nausea, and I again emptied what little I had left in my stomach.
I stood up and wiped my hand across the back of my mouth, tasting the vile flavor of puke in my muzzle. I shivered and hugged myself, glad to be out of the house that I had nearly killed someone in. If that girl had gone any further...I shivered again, afraid to think about what would have happened. I remembered how strong my father had gotten when he had been in one of his drunken rages, how he had literally broke our old sofa in half over his knee, how he had put his fist all the way through the television set, out the other side, and into the wall when his favorite football team had lost the super bowl. But I was even more terrified of how strong my mother had proven when she had beat my father nearly to death after he had taken after me with his belt one too many times. I turned around, and realized I had no idea where I was. I had never been this far in this direction before. Here the people were even worse off then my sorry excuse for a family was, many of them living in little more than huts mad of rusted tin and soggy cardboard boxes.
I turned around, and started towards home. I was glad that I had run in a straight line, otherwise it would have taken me hours to find my way back. I lifted my tail and wrapped it around my waist, not caring if my shorts had fallen down far enough to expose my ass or not. I needed the feeling of something wrapped around me. If it couldn't be another guy, then my tail would have to settle for now.
As my feet slapped against the concrete, I realized just how bad it had been for me to run barefoot down broken pavement littered with stones and broken glass. It had been a miracle that I hadn't driven a rusty nail through my foot as I had run. My feet were extremley sore, and I knew for certian that the heel of my right one was bleeding. I kept my eyes down as I slowly trudged back to my "home", if that's what you call it. I was about half-way there, by my reckoning, when a orange blur suddenly knocked me down and hugged me tightly. It was that damn fox again! I grunted and tried to push him off, but it was only a half-hearted attempt, and I realized that it might be the only guy I ever get to hug me. I hugged him back, just happy that someone had found me. The fox sat up on my stomach and looked down at me, grinning slightly. This, of course, pissed me off. "What the hell's so goddamn funny, chuckles?" I asked harshly. I should've known that this was a little extreme, but my day hadn't exactly been going well, and I was grumpy.
The smile vanished instantly from the fox's mouth, almost like magic. It would've been almost funny if his smile hadn't been replaced by his ears drooping and a tear coming to his eye as he hung his head. "S-Sorry...I just thought..." he muttered. "Oh jeez," I said. I sat up and hugged him. I didn't want to lose the only person who I felt comfortable being in close proximity with because I was being a little grumpy. He rested his head on my shoulder and started to cry softly. How many times was this going to happen to me today? I sighed and started using the same strategy I had tried on my mother, making shushing noises and whispering softly to him, "Shh...hey...listen...I didn't mean it...shhh...I'm so sorry." He hugged me back, and gave my cheek a soft lick, which really helped brighten up my mood. "I didn't mean to cry," he said softly, the occasional sob still coming through, "I just...I was afraid that you..." I nuzzled his neck, glad that I could show some affection to somebody in existence. "No... it's my fault, I've had a very hard day already."
The fox gave me a small kiss on my cheek, and then looked at me in an almost child-like manner. Oh yea, he was definitely gay. How I hadn't noticed him at school before, I don't know, but I found myself wishing that I had done this with him a long time ago. "Are....are you mad at me?" he inquired. "No," I said, slightly confused. "What would I be mad at you about?" "This," he said. And so, I received the first kiss of my entire life sitting on my ass in a filthy street flanked on both sides by grubby, broken down houses with an admittedly cute male fox sitting on my lap with his open mouth pressed against my own. I'd say it was a pretty good first kiss, as far as those go. He pushed his long tongue into my mouth, lapping at the inside of my cheeks and brushing softly against my own tongue.
As we broke apart, I stared into his eyes, which I had just noticed were a soft shade of grey. To me, they were perfect. As he looked at me, he remarked, "I've never met anyone with crimson eyes before." I laughed and hugged him tightly, then said, "It runs in my family." The fox murred and licked my cheek again. "By the way," he said. "My name is Justin." I nibbled softly on one of his ears, and decided to introduce myself. "I'm J..." But he had me beat. "Jake, I know. I...I've kinda had a crush on you since freshman year." I broke the hug and stared at him incredulously. "And it's taken you this long to tell me?" I demanded. Justin blushed and licked my mouth gently. "I've been...afraid...that you would...hate me." My heart went out to the little fox. He was probably more confused than I was. At least I didn't have any "crushes" or the like. I was just secretly gay. I could deal with that. Justin had to deal with feeling things that he didn't necessarily want to feel, and he managed to keep them a secret. I admired the little guy. I would've cracked a long time ago. Hell, I was a senior, and I was pretty sure he was in my grade. Four years...that's a long time to feel something that special for someone that you don't even know if he feels the same for you.
I gave him a gentle push so he slid off of my lap, and I stood up, dusting myself off. Justin stood up too, and leaned on my shoulder. He wasn't a very big guy, only about 5' 9". But he was perfect for me. "Justin," I said to him, "I think that this is going to be the start of a wonderful relationship." He smiled at me, then stood on tiptoe and gave me a little kiss on the cheek. I, of course, had to make it more special, so I leaned down, picked him up, and kissed him full on again, our tongues dancing in each others mouths until we had to break apart for air. I didn't put him down until we were both standing safely in my living room.